“Paint”: Expunging Ellen’s Thoughts

DAVIS (Reflecting on his father’s death): It’s not how I’m supposed to feel.

ELLEN: My parents like everything I do. It’s exhausting.

DAVIS: There’s nothing. (Pause) I’m just bored and rich. I have nothing in me. He was dead and I didn’t care.

ELLEN: You didn’t get along with him?

DAVIS: Heroin means more to me.the-velvet-undergroundELLEN: Hitting the junk, just like that?

DAVIS (Pause): The song.

ELLEN (Sarcastically): You don’t say?

DAVIS: “All the dead bodies piled up in the mounds.”

ELLEN: Another broken, lost soul.

DAVIS: I remember the first time I took acid. I was in Max’s apartment and he had this metal giraffe, this angular metal thing, a souvenir from a safari or something. (DAVIS holds his hand out in front of him, miming the action) And I’m staring at this stupid thing, waiting for it to get weird, expecting it to start dancing or talk to me. (Pause) And there was nothing. It was just the same thing.

ELLEN: Why are there no cartoon giraffes? I can’t think of one. There’s everything else: bear, lions, kangaroos. But no giraffes.(Pause) They’re so tall. They see things.giraffe